Former US Senator Larry Pressler has said that the Trump administration could declare Pakistan a terror state if Islamabad did not act on terrorism.
"Unless Pakistan does not change certain things, it may happen. Moreover, the Donald Trump administration is making sounds that they are getting near this. And I hope they do," Pressler, who is known for advocating amendments in the 1990s which banned most of the economic and military assistance to Pakistan, said.
Pressler, who has served as chairman of the US Senate's Arms Control Subcommittee, also spoke about the Indo-US nuclear cooperation agreement signed in October 2008, ending India's isolation by the West in the nuclear and space arena.
He said that the Indo-US civil nuclear cooperation agreement is more of an "arms deal", but the focus of the bilateral partnership should be on "agriculture, technology and health care". The deal has given a significant boost to India's nuclear energy production.
Pressler claimed the then US president Barack Obama's visit to New Delhi was largely an arms sale trip.
"I would love to see peaceful use of nuclear energy, but I am worried that so far it (Indo-US nuke agreement) has mostly been an arms deal. It seems to me that much of the new agreement is a large arms sale to Indians," Pressler said.
